Brunswick to shut down four brands
By IBI Magazine
Brunswick Corp. announced today in a statement that it would stop manufacturing four of its Bluewater Marine brands, including Sea Pro, Sea Boss, Palmetto and Laguna. It also announced that it would close the facility in Newberry, S.C. that produces these brands by the end of June. About 175 workers will be affected. Brunswick said ithe prolonged downturn in the US marine industry was behind the decision to terminate the brands. "We are assessing the recovery potential for all marine segments in which we participate, their fragmented nature, the costs of our continued presence in certain of them, and the position of our brands," said Dustan E. McCoy, Brunswick chairman in the statement. "Our work is ongoing and is focused on developing profitable brand positioning in all segments. With this action, we believe we will solidify our presence in the highly fragmented saltwater segment by concentrating our efforts and leveraging our resources on such brands as Boston Whaler, Triton, Trophy, and our sportfishing offerings from Hatteras, Cabo and Albemarle, while sharpening our market focus and providing necessary cost reductions." Brunswick said it will record a pretax charge of about US$25 million to US $30 million in the second quarter of 2008 to cover asset write-downs and other costs associated with the plant closure. It also added that it will realize annualized pretax savings of approximately US$9 million stemming from this decision.
(14 May 2008)
|
